ROH Death Before Dishonor X: State of Emergency Review

Kevin Steen defends the World Title against Rhino and new World Tag Team Champs are crowned.

*I'd like to point out that this one is, again, the DVD version, thus I'm neglecting the iPPV issues this show had*

ROH Death Before Dishonor X: State Of Emergency
Chicago Ridge, Illinois 9/15/12

1.) ROH World Tag Team Title Tournament Semi-Finals - S.C.U.M. (Steve Corino & Jimmy Jacobs) vs. Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander: ***1/4

Corino & Jacobs need to win the tournament and the titles or they will be out of Ring of Honor. A fairly solid opener here. These two teams seems to have good chemistry as they seem to put on good matches all around.

2.) Survival of the Fittest Qualifying Match - Tadarius Thomas vs. Silas Young: **3/4

The winner of this will be in the 2012 Edition of Survival of the Fittest in Baltimore the next weekend. A fine undercard match. Both guys did pretty well in the time they were given.

3.) Kyle O'Reilly vs. ACH: ***1/4

This is the ROH debut for ACH. He definitely has the in-ring ability and charisma to be a star, and the crowd was into him. A solid match here. O'Reilly getting the win was expected, but still a fine debut for ACH.

4.) ROH World Tag Team Title Tournament Semi-Finals - The Briscoes vs. Charlie Haas & Rhett Titus (with Shelton Benjamin): **

So since Shelton Benjamin was "suspended" back in August and couldn't compete in the tournament's opening round, he and his arch enemy Rhett Titus decided to form a Tag Team in the Tournament so they can win the belts and.....fight over them in a later match. What? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the tournament? Shelton was unsuspended at this point and at ringside, which makes this pairing even more pointless. To be honest, the match sucked as well. I don't know if it was Haas & Titus, or if The Briscoes just had an off night, but this was not good.

Davey Richards comes out and pretty much cuts the extended iPPV version of the promo he cut at Caged Hostility. He concludes by announcing that he will be in Survival of the Fittest, and that hunting season is open on his opponent, Mike Bennett.

5.) Jay Lethal vs. Homicide: ***1/4

These two have a history that dates all the way back to 2005, during the feud Lethal had with Low Ki and the rest of The Rottweilers. He's trying to find his 'Killer Instinct'. I enjoyed this. Nothing spectacular, but solid. It took forever for Lethal to put Homicide away, and had to use a nasty looking Cradle DDT Finisher, which he rarely uses again (I think ACH actually uses it as his finisher now), to put the Notorious 187 away.

6.) Roderick Strong & Michael Elgin (with Truth Martini) vs. Irish Airborne: ***

It's been a few years since Irish Airborne were seen in ROH. They've been regulars in CZW, AAW, and AIW. A decent match here. Short but solid for what it was. Strong sneaks in a cover, stealing Elgin's thunder, for the win. I heard Irish Airborne have improved since the last time they were in ROH. You wouldn't know it from watching this.

7.) ROH World Television Title - Adam Cole vs. Mike Mondo: ***1/2

Mondo won a 6-Man Mayhem Match on TV to earn this shot. Matt Hardy is out on commentary. I thought this was actually very solid but it felt like it went a little longer than it needed to. Still, the match was pretty good.

Afterwords, Hardy gets in the ring and shakes Cole's hand. He then says Cole was never as good as him and will never be better than him.

8.) ROH World Tag Team Title Tournament Finals – S.C.U.M. (Steve Corino & Jimmy Jacobs) vs. Charlie Haas & Rhett Titus: **1/2

Not as good as the opener, but better than the Briscoes match. Essentially, Shelton takes out Jacobs so Titus & Haas could win, but Titus doesn't want to win it this way, causing Shelton to lay him out, leading to S.C.U.M. getting the titles. Weird booking in the match, and the whole tournament.

WGTT lays out Titus after the match.

9.) ROH World Title – Anything Goes - Kevin Steen vs. Rhino (with Truth Martini): ***3/4

Weird seeing this heel vs. heel match main eventing an iPPV. Pretty much on the same level as the Kevin Steen defense from the last iPPV. A lot of people were unsure if this would be good but it turned out surpassing my expectations. Weapons and interference were aplenty, and the crowd was actually into it.

After Steen retains, Michael Elgin comes out to take out Steen but Steve Corino sends Roderick Strong (both were already out there) into Elgin, breaking up the Elgin Bomb. Elgin then proceeds to lays Strong out with the Elgin Bomb to end the show.

Overall: 7.25/10

This has got to be one of the more disappointing Death Before Dishonor shows ROH has ever put on. Part of it was the match quality, but a lot of it had to do with the booking of ROH leading up to the show. Why were S.C.U.M. and the House of Truth, two heel factions, feuding? The World Tag Team Title Tournament was not handled well at all, and ended up being very predictable. There was some good to very good stuff match wise on here that helped the show out, but for it being one of ROH's biggest events of the year, it was definitely a disappointment.